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Notes: Written for Painless_J, who asked for Severus/Draco. Draco seeks vengeance. Voldemort is kind enough to grant it to him.

Red isn't just a color for Gryffindors. The vial Draco holds in his hands, frail and glittering, is a Slytherin shade of red--darker, sweeter, more poisonous. It is the shade of wine, of vengeance, of betrayal--and Voldemort, who smiles down at Draco's bowed head, knows this as well.

Draco's mission is simple. It is his first task as a Death Eater, his first test of loyalty. Voldemort believes in divide-and-conquer--and, like a noble who owns many fine dogs, finds entertainment in pitting them against each other.

Survival of the fittest, Voldemort's voice hisses in his memory. I have reason to believe that one of my own is not true to me. Will you help me discover who he is, Draco?

Oh, Draco hasn't been assigned anything so barbarous as assassination. He hasn't been assigned anything that will risk his position at Hogwarts. Instead Draco is simply sent to extract information from a willing subject--from a Potions master known as Severus Snape.

* * *

Draco has always known that Snape wants him. It's a visceral thing--Draco, like all Slytherins, knows the methods of desire. There was a time when it revolted him, when Snape's black eyes looked too long or his hand lingered too close--and at times like these Draco almost pulled away--but then he remembered that desire unfulfilled is power preserved, and he didn't draw away from Snape after all.

Now in his sixth year at Hogwarts, Draco takes pleasure in knowing that he was right. In not pulling away, in preserving the power he had over Snape. How useful it is now. Draco's father--beautiful, blazing, ruthless--is now rotting in Azkaban, and it is all because of Snape's betrayal. Voldemort had told him as much, and while Draco knows better than to believe that what he had been told was the complete truth, he also knows better than to think it a complete lie. If Snape is indeed a spy for Albus Dumbledore, he must have had a hand in Luicus Malfoy's arrest--and Draco, whose rage is a constant white fire in his chest, will not forego a chance for revenge.

It is ironic that Snape had been the one to accompany his initiation, by Voldemort's command--it is ironic that Snape had a hand in his own demise. Draco still remembers, with a mingling of disdain and hate, how Snape's face had flinched--ever so slightly--when the Mark had been burned into Draco's arm. Draco hadn't flinched at all, thanks to the skin-numbing potion Snape had rubbed into his arm earlier--and thus he had ample time to see the shift of regret in Snape's eyes, of grief, at seeing his favorite student join the Dark Lord. No one else had seen it--but Draco, who was standing close and wasn't focused on the Marking alone, saw more than enough.

When Voldemort had asked Draco to stay, afterwards, Draco wasn't surprised--and when Voldemort had told him his first mission, slipping the red vial into Draco's hands, Draco wasn't perturbed. Snape was valuable, and Voldemort didn't want him dead unless there was some merit to the rumors of his treachery--and Draco, who had lost his father and had pledged to destroy anyone who had had a hand in it, obeyed Voldemort without a doubt.

Yes, it is ironic. That Snape should be a spy, and that he should have another spy sent after him.

* * *

It isn't difficult to get into Snape's bed. Snape's been wanting this for years, after all, and when a broken, grieving Draco Malfoy comes to his quarters late at night, dressed in a thin night-robe and begging comfort, Snape doesn't turn him away.

It isn't difficult to prove to Snape that he does need comfort. The grief is still lodged in his throat, somewhere, and it is easier than he expected to let it make its way past his rage--he has watched Potter play the shattered innocent, after all, and he has learned from the best. It isn't difficult to sink onto the cold floor of Snape's dungeons, sobbing--it isn't difficult to make Snape believe him, because Snape wants to believe him--because Snape wants to believe that this child truly isn't one of the Death Eaters, is still in need of help.

No, it isn't difficult at all. The red potion fizzles in his blood like sweet poison, masking his thoughts to Snape's Legilimency. This is Voldemort's gift--a finely crafted Shielding potion--and Draco, burying his face in Snape's shoulders, shuddering in the stiff circle of Snape's arms, can make Snape's mind see whatever it wants to see.

It isn't difficult to shift his pretence of grief into one of desire, to use the potion to mask his revulsion with passion--it isn't difficult to reach up, in the midst of Snape's fatherly embrace, to demand a not-so-fatherly kiss.

Snape balks--for longer than Draco had expected, and with more fortitude than he had expected--but Draco's potion-shielded mind unfolds like a blazing flower, incandescent with need, and Snape gasps at the feel of it as a thirsty man would at the sight of a mirage. I need this, Draco keeps murmuring, I want this, please, Professor, please, please, please, and he knows that his lips are soft with the taste of tears when he brushes them against Snape's.

Snape crumbles quickly after that. Draco keeps saying please, because Snape seems to break a little more every time he hears it--and it almost makes Draco smile, for a moment, to see Snape's expression crumple in self-hatred, in need, as his hands fumble at the opening of Draco's robes.

So easy. So easy.

Snape's fingers are thick, rough, hurried--and it doesn't surprise Draco that Snape often seems to forget Draco in his own need, that Snape is only sporadically gentle whenever Draco makes a sound, that Snape's eyes snap back to awareness whenever Draco flinches, and he only just manages to reign himself in again, softening his kisses and touches until Draco sighs.

It isn't difficult to wind his fingers in Snape's oily hair as though he relishes it--it isn't difficult to arch to Snape's rough, wet tongue--it isn't difficult to harden at the brush of Snape's palm, trembling and calloused, against his cock. He's only sixteen, after all, and it doesn't take much to make him hard--and Snape's trying, he really is, so desperately and sweetly and yes. It isn't difficult to part his thighs to make a soft white valley for Snape to drown in--it isn't difficult to run his hands up the arch of Snape's bony back, to answer Snape's clumsy, ugly kisses--it isn't difficult. It isn't. It isn't.

It isn't difficult to answer Yes when Snape asks him Are you a virgin--it isn't difficult to gasp Yes! when Snape's fingers make their way into him, oiled and gentle and hurting, and Yes when Snape's cock takes their place, just as oiled but no longer gentle, drawing tears of pain from Draco's eyes.

It isn't difficult to say No when Snape draws back and asks Should I stop--it isn't difficult to wrap his legs around Snape's waist, urging deeper, deeper, even though his masked mind is crying out, out, out.

It isn't difficult to come when Snape strokes him--come hard, come like he means it--and when he arches, pulsing hot and desperate against Snape's stomach, it isn't difficult to meet Snape's eyes with something like gratitude--it isn't difficult to pull Snape down for a kiss.

But it is difficult, after Snape comes, to let Snape touch him again. It is difficult to say Could I stay a bit longer, please, and to smile tremulously when Snape hesitates and, clearly against his better judgement, says Yes.

It isn't difficult to have sex with Severus Snape, no. But it is difficult, as the night passes and he stays awake in Snape's heavy, uncomfortable embrace, not to think of the paring knife on Snape's worktable--of how it must be glinting in the moonlight now, cold and thin and inviting, and how easily it would slide into Snape's sallow, unguarded skin.

* * *

Time passes, as it is wont to do, and Draco gets used to it. He grows skilled at hiding where he goes at night, and why--and since he has his own room, as the sixth-year Slytherin prefect, it isn't particularly difficult to do so.

Snape has become wonderfully malleable to him--Draco is sure now that he could ask for anything, anything at all, and Snape would strive to give it to him. He wonders what makes Snape so desperate--perhaps it is his ugliness, perhaps it is his sense of wonder at the thought that Draco might want him--or perhaps it is just the way Snape is, a parasitic lover, whenever he lets someone past his shields.

The only thing Snape won't give him, of course, is information--about Dumbledore, about what he does for Dumbledore--and Draco knows better than to ask for that, because it will make Snape suspicious, because it will ruin months of hard work.

School continues as it must. Draco manages to work up the token insult or two for Potter--he manages to hide his distraction by pretending to be improving his standing as a prefect, by claiming that he wants to become Head Boy next year. Draco Malfoy on 'good behavior'--the thought almost makes him laugh.

Meanwhile Voldemort stays silent--his Death Eaters do precious little in the way of public spectacle, and perhaps Dumbledore's lackeys are foolish enough to believe that the Dark Lord is licking his wounds.

Draco, of course, knows better--he knows that what Voldemort is doing is research, painstaking and flawless, into the mechanics of Prophecies and how to turn them. He remembers Voldemort telling him this before he'd been Marked: Prophecies are like dice, young Malfoy. They can be loaded. Draco is confident that Voldemort will have discovered a method for victory before the end of the year, and he is patient when he doesn't get called to Death Eater meetings, because he is still just a child, and he will not be privileged to see Voldemort again until he completes his mission.

His mission.

Only a few weeks before it is accomplished.

Only a few weeks before the Christmas holidays.

If he finishes his mission by then, he'll be called to see Voldemort again--and he'll be rewarded, in both rank and esteem, and he'll be part of the plans to destroy Potter. Draco will have what he wants--revenge for his father, pain for Potter, pain for Snape--he'll have what he wants, and Draco can almost taste it sometimes, staring across the Great Hall at Potter's hateful face--or gazing up, from an intimate, sweat-locked embrace, at Snape's more familiar one.

Only a few more weeks.

* * *

When the day comes, of course, Draco isn't nervous. He has drunk the last drop of the potion in Voldemort's little red vial. He has smoothed his hair until it gleams a pale gold, and he has a smile on his face that is genuine, or almost genuine, even though it stretches his face in strange and unfamiliar ways.

He melts easily into Snape's embrace once he enters Snape's chambers--he kisses easily, hardens easily, and parts his legs easily on Snape's wide bed.

The plan is simple. Snape no longer keeps his wand within arms-reach of the bed when Draco is with him--he seems to remember nothing at all, in fact, of risk or Slytherin caution. Not only this, but his mind is unguarded as well--throughout these months he's seen nothing in Draco's Shielded mind that arouses suspicion--and for the first time, the first, Severus Snape is completely unarmed before a fellow Death Eater. He hasn't hidden his thoughts, he hasn't hardened his will--and he is completely susceptible, now, to a dose of strong Veritaserum.

Veritaserum, as Snape himself had told them in a class earlier this year, is mind-magic, not just chemistry--and professional mind-shielders such as Occlumenscan and will resist its control, quite skilfully, as long as they have the will to do so.

But Snape, after months of being tamed by Draco's silken hand, no longer has the will to resist--not when he is with Draco, not when he feels no need to protect himself.

It is easy, when they have both come and are lying damply on Snape's sheets, for Draco to claim to be thirsty. It is easy to let Snape's fingers stroke down his bare thigh in a parting caress--it is easy to slip out of bed and pad, on calm and sleepy feet, out of the bedroom and into the foyer. It is easy to say that he won't Accio a drink because he wants to choose one personally from Snape's extensive collection--he has done so before, after all. It is just as easy to take two glasses and fill them both with wine--to walk over to his robes, crumpled by the front door, and take out the Veritaserum. Five drops should be enough.

He returns to Snape's bedroom with one wine-glass in each hand, naked and gold and gleaming. Snape smiles and calls him my young Dionysus, and Draco climbs astride him, warm skin on warm skin, and offers Snape the wine in his left hand.

Snape takes it without question. If he notices the slight tremble in Draco's hands, the extra care Draco has taken in handing him the right glass, he gives no sign--his eyes are fixed on Draco's body instead, the young perfection of it. The hand that isn't holding his glass slips down Draco's chest caressingly, almost lovingly, before curling around Draco's cock.

Oh, it is easy to harden now. Draco slits his eyes and rocks his hips, sipping his wine with a smile curving his mouth--and Snape keeps his strokes slow, delicate, until Draco licks his lips and sighs: Yes. Snape's own erection presses against Draco's thighs, hot and pulsing. Draco leans over Snape, reaching out to place his glass on the bedside table--and now, with both hands free, he steadies himself and pushes back against Snape's cock, watching as Snape's eyes darken with lust.

Snape sets his glass aside as well, and then Draco murmurs: Do you want in me?

Snape, because he still seems to think Draco too young, replies: No, you must be sore--but just then his breath hitches and his pupils dilate abruptly, and Draco knows that the Veritaserum has made it into Snape's mind.

He asks Snape again: Do you want in me?

And Snape, eyes wide with disbelief at his own words, says: Yes, yes, gods yes.

Draco smiles.

It takes Snape a few precious moments to realize what has happened--his mind is still lust-hazy and, even more dangerously, lax with trust--but those moments cost him everything. Because by then Draco's arm has shot out to the bedside table to grasp his wand, and then he's pointed it at Snape's chest, and he has whispered, in a voice as pleased and sibilant as a snake's: Evincio.*

Snape is frozen.

Literally, metaphorically, both. Snape cannot move, because Draco has bound him--and Snape would not want to move, even if he could, because suddenly his eyes are hollow and his breath sounds broken, and his erection has wilted quite quickly against Draco's thighs. Draco is still hard, harder than ever, in fact, and it doesn't surprise him.

It occurs to Draco that he is probably witnessing what no one else has seen before--the breaking of Severus Snape's heart--but that thought is a distant and inconsequential one. Even if Snape were to recover and rage against him, it wouldn't make any difference--the magical bonds have immobilized Snape on the bed, leaving only his mouth free to move. Which is a good thing, because the Veritaserum has already made it past Snape's lowered mental shields, and he cannot raise them again.

Draco doesn't bother asking: How does it feel, Severus? To know defeat?

Instead he asks: Are you more loyal to Albus Dumbledore than you are to Lord Voldemort?

Snape, muscles straining with the effort to keep silent, says: Yes.

And so it begins.

* * *

When the next morning arrives it is cold and pure--and Draco wants to be outside, flying, but he's packing his scrolls instead. The Christmas holidays are here and Draco's going home--to a home without a father, yes, but a home nonetheless--and his heart flutters with eagerness at the thought of what he possesses, the knowledge he possesses, possibly the most precious thing he's possessed in his life.

He will rise through Voldemort's ranks to take his father's place. He will be a Malfoy heir. He will be avenged on Potter. He will. He will.

He'd nearly come on his own last night, without a single touch from Snape--so perfect was it to see Snape like that, helpless, mind and body open to attack. Draco had knelt astride him and humped him slowly, asking him questions that, with each answer, destroyed another year of Snape's carefully built life. Snape's humiliation was an aphrodisiac like no other--his hurt, his rage, his inability to do anything about it, perhaps the most erotic attention Snape had ever paid him.

My young Dionysus, he remembers Snape's voice saying, and nearly laughs--he was a succubus, not a god, and Snape had caved so wonderfully to his caresses. It had been so easy, after coming over Snape, to lean down and whisper Obliviate--to see eyes dark and dull with pain suddenly clear of it, blinking dazedly up at him, before Draco murmured Dormio* and sent Snape to sleep again.

Draco had accomplished the one thing no one else ever had--he had taken perhaps the finest Occlumens in the world--excepting Lord Voldemort, of course--and had temporarily rendered his mind incapable, even unwilling, to defend itself. That lovely little slice of Veritaserum, cutting Snape's mind open layer by layer--and though Snape may have fought against it afterwards, once he realized the truth, it would already have been too late. A few precious moments of trust, that was all Draco needed--and he had earned them, each one of those moments, after days and months of work.

Draco doesn't feel like a whore, although he knows that, in a sense, that's what he has been. Instead he feels like a soldier, like a spy, like the finest Death Eater Voldemort has ever had. Snape doesn't even know that he's been betrayed--all he remembers of last night is the usual, uninhibited bout of sex--and he will go to the Christmas gathering of the Death Eaters with no idea of what awaits him, no idea at all. Practically hand-delivered. Draco wonders what they will do to Snape--if it will be anywhere near as bad as what's been done to Draco's father--and he hopes, with a sort of young, urgent excitement, that they'll let him watch.

Snape's turn today. Perhaps Potter's tomorrow.

It's all so perfect. So perfect.

The Hogwarts Express will be leaving in two hours' time, and his mother will be waiting for him at the platform.

Draco leans out of his window, breathes in the fresh morning air, and smiles.

* Evincio: To tie up, to bind.

* Dormio: To sleep.